Harvesters of various types, including sugarcane harvesters, may include harvesting devices of various types. Harvesting devices for a sugarcane harvester, for example, may include assemblies for cutting, chopping, sorting, transporting, and otherwise gathering and processing sugarcane plants. Typical harvesting devices include base cutters assemblies (or “base cutters”), feed rollers, cutting drums, and so on. In various harvesters, harvesting devices may be hydraulically powered by an engine-driven (or other) pump.
To actively harvest crops, a harvester may move along a field with harvesting devices engaged, the harvesting devices gathering and processing material from rows of crop plants. In the case of sugarcane harvesters, gathered sugarcane stalks may be chopped into billets for delivery to a trailing wagon, while leaves and trash may be separated from the billets and ejected into the field.
It may be useful to orient the base cutter(s) of a base cutter in relative close proximity to the ground during harvesting operations. This may, for example, help to ensure that sugarcane plants are cut by the base cutter at a location that is relatively close to the ground, resulting in less waste. Further, in certain instances, rotating disks, paddles, and so on that may be included in various base cutters. The rotation of these components may help to lift already cut sugarcane off of the ground. Accordingly, relative close proximity of the base cutter(s) to the ground (and other devices) may also allow for more effective lifting and routing of sugarcane plants.
With traditional harvester designs, however, executing harvesting operations with base cutter(s) in relative close proximity (s) to the ground may increase the likelihood of various undesirable effects. For example, rises, bumps or other uneven topography in a particular field may result in impacts between the base cutters and the ground. This may result in damage to the base cutters. Further, base cutters oriented too closely to the ground may tend to entrain increased quantities of dirt and other trash into the stream of cut sugarcane, increasing the load on the harvester's feed train and the potential for chokes, jams, or other interruptions to harvesting.